


windows of an infinite dimension

by hotknife666 (hotdammneron)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Cold case files as whatever the antonym of a plot device is, M/M, implied/referenced photography, urbex youtubers au, vague and ambiguous relationship status
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdammneron/pseuds/hotknife666
Summary: It’s not really his fault how many photos of Patty he has. It’s just like, whenever they’re out, Patty’s always got that stupid intense focus look to him, all in the forehead. Scowly bitch.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 4
Kudos: 122





	windows of an infinite dimension

**Author's Note:**

> father forgive me for i have never been anywhere near philly and all of these locations are made up. someday my #brand is just gonna be Fics Where You Think Wow, This Guy Watches A Lot Of Videos Online.

All those secretly-skimmed romance novels taken into consideration, Travis is pretty sure the whole “first time you realize you’re in love” thing has been done to death. Everyone in the world, and their dogs and grandmothers for posterity’s sake, has some kind of bullshit story like that; the whole seeing them across the room, first time they bring you coffee in the library, whole nine yards bullshit. 

That being said, Travis isn’t sure when he, like. Y’know. Realized Things. 

It’s not really his fault how many photos of Patty he has. It’s just like, whenever they’re out, Patty’s always got that stupid intense focus look to him, all in the forehead. Scowly bitch. He’ll be walking through knee deep basement water looking like somebody shot his dog and told him he’s gotta drink hot coffee until he dies. Crouched at the steps of that one really dope old theater they found a little outside of the city, trying to get the perfect shot, tongue sticking out between his teeth just a tiny bit. Holding perfectly fucking still because he swears he heard a noise, and Travis isn’t ever willing to say it was just him fucking around. 

As far as the instagram shows, Patty takes most of the photos, but Travis takes some too. Just doesn’t post them, not unless Pats looks extra stupid and finsta-worthy. 

The point is, if there has to be a pinpoint Falling For Pats moment, some wedding speech level hammin’ for the fam shit, it’s definitely in his camera roll somewhere.

“Those stairs are fucked,” Pats is mumbling over his shoulder while Travis tries to expertly fucking lunge across a crumbled out fire escape step. 

“You’ve gotta, like, watch the master at work,” Travis says, and his pants almost tear, but he gets over the missing step, so. Little fucking victories. “You comin’ up, bud?” 

Pats does not, in fact, come up. He doesn’t help Trav get back down either. 

They try and shoot a video in the old steam power plant that Travis is so goddamn excited for that he barely sleeps for the week before they head out. By the time they get there, security’s gotten around to it and put up a huge fuckin’ electric fence around the property. So much for enjoying life and shit. 

(They spend about fifteen minutes standing outside the fence, and Travis almost convinces Patty to try and climb it, like it’s not charged with however many volts. He gets a photo of Pats’ face mid-argument, so. Once again with the little victories.)

It’s a Tuesday, and Kevin’s getting stoned out of his mind on the couch, because it’s a goddamned Tuesday. And, see, Travis had some pretty sexy plans to fall asleep to Cold Case Files on that couch around four in the afternoon, prime napping hours until Pats gets off work, but Kevin’s getting stoned on the couch, so. Second sexiest plans consist of smoking Kev’s weed and eventually convincing him to watch Cold Case Files. Might even get him to let Travis use his weird gigantic body as a pillow. 

The second plan is, much to Trav’s dismay, similarly foiled by Stoned Kev’s apparent desire to just stare at Travis for fifteen minutes like he did something horribly wrong. God, Travis misses living alone sometimes. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Kev asks, bizarrely confrontational for a Tuesday. Travis ignores him, tries to pull up the TV guide and figure out how and where to watch Cold Case files, because the only question he has answers for is ‘why’. 

Kevin asks again, and Travis thumps his head against the armrest of the couch. Shamelessly, he makes grabby hands until Kev passes him the joint. 

“Your communication skills need work,” Kevin says, settles back against the cushions with a little huff. 

“Y’knew what I meant, bitch,” Travis snaps back, kicking at Kevin’s thigh. “Skills don’t need improving if they suck, you still give me your weed. Just because you went to college doesn’t mean you’re smart.” 

Cold Case Files is on in twelve minutes. Score. 

“You’re so mean,” Kevin mumbles, reaches over and grabs the joint back. “I just meant you suck at talking to people and being, like, serious. Even with me ‘n Pats.”

He says it like he doesn’t have a dozen unread messages from his weird friends back in New York, last time Trav looked over his shoulder at his inbox. Dumbass. Besides, Patty’s got nothing to do with any communication issues Travis has. 

Kevin’s a dumbass, but he lets Trav put the TV on A&E and lets him lean on him like a human body pillow with a built in space heater. Even plays with his hair a little bit, because he gets too affectionate when he’s high and Travis lets him get away with it. Sure, Kev’s a dumbass, that’s been said a thousand times, but maybe he’s right every once in a while. Not about the Pats thing, or Travis’s communication “issues”, but. Sometimes. 

Travis wakes up a little bit later, Kevin’s still passed out, and Patty’s airdropped him half a dozen photos of their coordinated nap sesh. Probably does some good to diversify the subject material of his camera roll, even if it’s not as nice to look at. 

Broad Street Wanderers hits a thousand followers, like, a week and a half before Patty’s 21st. Travis’s kinda glad they can compartmentalize the celebrating of the subscriber milestone - even if it’s tiny compared to, like, some of the big name channels, and their insta’s got less followers than Nolan’s sister’s personal account - into a whole other weekend than celebrating Pats’ birthday. Not that they’re having big parties for either anyway, but getting drunk at the house has gotta count for something. 

So, yeah, there’s a livestream of them fucking around for the thousand follower mark (for their 600 or so instagram followers, like they give a fuck), but it’s more chill for Patty’s birthday, because he’d probably hate anything else. 

They take a day trip to the old high school down south. It’s the first place they ever actually had the nerve to explore; back in the good old days when Trav was just a babyfaced bitch, two weeks away from dropping out, Nolan fresh out of high school. Kevin was still in New York the first time they went to the high school, but they didn’t know him then, and he isn’t coming with this time because he’s got work, and this isn’t about Kevin. Travis isn’t sure what it’s about, but it might be the nostalgia of it, the safety of being somewhere they’ve been before, looking up at the graffiti in the classrooms and thinking. 

Whatever it’s about, it’s half Pats’ idea and half Trav’s, and most of their best ideas are half and half like that. 

So if half of the appeal of the high school is the nostalgia, the other half is the pool. It was the star of the show the first time they made the trip down there, wandering around late into the afternoon trying to find anything more interesting than graffitied bathroom stalls and scattered natty lite cans from stupid high schoolers. When they were getting ready to head back to the car, they took a wrong turn that wasn’t quite Travis’s fault - half and half, same as always - and that’s when they saw it. So, yeah, maybe they’re just going back for the pool. There’s something sweet about it.

The deep end of the pool looks so much deeper than eight feet, but Travis isn’t exactly an expert in matters of measurement. It’s something about the way the graffiti sprawled on the tiles stretches out of itself, lines between each tag indistinct with age and layers of paint. Something about how far away it feels at 35 or so feet, sitting at the edge of the shallow end with Pats on his right and his backpack with snacks and shit on the left. Just the essentials. 

He’s got a photo from the second time they made it out here, pretty deep in his camera roll by now being a few years back, and it’s Patty standing where they’re sitting now, setting up his little portable tripod. There’s this huge mural on the far wall, started out as some design for the mascot of the swim team but it’s taken on a new life, all these tentacles and feathers in thousands of colors. Of course, you can’t see the mural from where Travis took his photo, but it was all Patty could focus on, just trying to get the angles right. He’d seemed so quietly proud of himself when he got the shot down, showed it to Travis in the little camera viewfinder and asked if he liked it. Like anything Pats did wasn’t fucking perfect. 

It’s weird, sitting here now with his legs hanging out over the edge of the shallow end, thinking about how long it’s been. Two years but it’s a lifetime. 

Patty’s hand brushes against his when he moves to point out a tag on the left wall near them, two names scrawled in a lopsided heart. He does that sometimes, takes advantage of Trav’s seemingly endless supply of bullshitting energy, asking him to come up with little backstories for the shit he doesn’t have a clear cut explanation for. Like it’s better than nothing. 

“Probably not together anymore,” Travis mumbles, squinting a little to see the names better. “Chad got kicked out of his uncle’s house, left town without telling Sara anything and barely answered when she called. Absolutely heart wrenching, bud.”

Patty narrows his eyes at him, but at least he’s looking. “Is that the plot of a Gilmore Girls episode?” He asks, like a bitch.

“Don’t be a bitch, Pats,” Travis says, and Pats is smiling a little bit, so things are good. “That’s somebody’s heartbreak you’re talking about.”

There’s a few minutes where Pats is just quiet. Makes Travis want to jump in the deep end and pray for the worst. He can deal with quiet, contrary to popular fucking belief, but sometimes it feels like the first few days when a cold’s coming on and you can tell things are gonna get even a tiny bit worse. 

“Couldn’t be us,” Pats says after a million goddamn years, and his hand shifts a little bit to the left again and just almost touches. There’s a lot of things that are almost. 

Travis doesn’t know what to say about that, which some people have claimed is a commodity. 

“You’d never leave me alone long enough to let me just leave town like that,” Pats continues, drums his fingertips against the cold tile of the pool’s edge. “And you’d never just up and leave, so. That’d never happen.”

“You trying to leave town on me, bud?” Travis asks, latching on to that little part to try and not think about the rest. 

“No,” Patty says, his eyebrows doing that thing where they pull close together like curtains on a rod. Trying to shut off his face like it’s sunlight. “I wouldn’t try to leave without you in the first place.” 

The tile on the lip of the pool is that weird no-slip stuff, the kind that’s almost like sandpaper to the touch. It’s hot as a motherfucker outside, the fall chill hasn’t dropped, but something about the cement walls of the school building keeps all the heat out. The windows along the top of the wall are busted out in places, letting in the sound of the birds outside, all quiet inside for lack of talking. Not much left to say. 

“I’m glad we’re here,” Travis says, lets the side of his hand fall all fake casual to lean against Pats’. Here meaning this abandoned highschool pool center, here meaning so far away from anything else that could be home, here meaning whatever it is they’re doing. 

“Me too,” Pats mumbles and leans his whole shaved bigfoot body in to put his head on Trav’s shoulder. His hair’s gotten so long, hangs past his shoulders and hits where Travis’s shirtsleeve stops and gives him goosebumps all up and down his arm. The feeling isn’t something you can really take a picture of, but it’s sure fucking beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> my twitter is hotknife666 title is from flame on flame a slow dirge by kishi bashi. i love you goodnight


End file.
